I threatened that I might hedge my World Cup joy by slightly supporting ‘Murica… and I have to confess, I leaned in hard as soon as I saw an exArsenal Hale End product was in the starting 11. Folarin Balogun.
The Monaco man, who used to play for Arsenal, competed with Eddie for a spot in the starting 11 under Arteta… he failed, went out on loan to Ligue 1, had an incredible time, and Arsenal could not sell him fast enough. We landed quite an extraordinary fee for him considering the lack of a sample size. I thought that might be an Arsenal thing… but he was an exception to the rule that we don’t really sell that well.
The player knew he’d never make it as an England striker, now he’s USA USA USA and he got the nod over Weah, scored a STUNNER, and now he’s part of USMNT history.
Good.
For.
Him.
I’m also happy for Americans. You deserved this. What a day. A lovely price for SpaceX, and a huge win on your World Cup opener.
Can we also talk about the style makeover of Poch? Man looked like he’d been on a 4-day bender three weeks ago, but America wasn’t going to let him out on the big stage without a glow-up. His hair looked good, the Parisian workwear was lovely, his skin looked great, a little bit of jewelry. Divorced dad on steroids. You love to see that sort of thing. Can’t be showing up to a World Cup in a sloppy golf polo shirt.
I don’t want to dwell too heavily on the opener. Mexico were bland on toast and so were South Africa. They really struggled without the vuvuzelas. It was a low-quality match in a very awesome stadium.
Korea vs Czechia was more fun, but it was alarming to see the gaps in the seating for a World Cup game so early. I tried to buy tickets for a game in Kansas. Ecuador vs Curaçao, it was $530 in the bleachers. I don’t mind an average game with one country I can’t pick out on a map… but for that money? I’m not sure, boys and girls; I’m just not sure at all.
Transfer rumours were pretty decent, finally. David Ornstein is in the mood to share… but the name wasn’t quite where we want to be.
Hard to not get a little bit excited about someone who has scored 22 goals and had 29 assists in a single season. Those are crazy numbers. The Belgian League also has quite a good record for talent transferring into the Premier League. Doku and Vincent Kompany spring to mind, but look no further than Trossard. What a player he’s been for Arsenal. This guy looks like he's on performance-enhancing drugs in the comps, a Greek god, sent from FINAL ACTION heaven.
It’s quite hard to get really good data on him, but according to his Opta numbers via Scout Lab, he is a big end-product guy in the Champions League.
Oh, you don’t know what VAEP is?
Developed by researchers Tom Decroos, Lotte Bransen, Jan Van Haaren, and Jesse Davis, it’s one of the more sophisticated action-value models in football analytics.
The core idea
Every action a player takes — a pass, a dribble, a tackle, a shot — changes the probability of two outcomes:
The probability of scoring in the next few actions
The probability of conceding in the next few actions
VAEP quantifies that change. A positive VAEP value means the action increased your team’s scoring probability or decreased your conceding probability. A negative value means the opposite.
Why it matters
Traditional stats (passes completed, tackles won) tell you what happened but not how valuable it was. VAEP tries to answer whether a given action actually moved the needle toward or away from a goal.
How it works technically
It uses machine learning trained on sequences of actions (not just isolated events) to estimate pre- and post-action probabilities, then takes the difference as the action’s value. That sequence-based approach is what distinguishes it from simpler expected threat (xT) models.
Practical use
Clubs and analysts use it to rank players across positions on a common value scale — useful for scouting and recruitment because you can compare a centre-back’s defensive actions against a winger’s attacking contributions in the same currency.
So if your VAEP has you in the 93rd percentile, it means you are dangerous. Like Goose from Top Gun. Go on, I dare you to talk about this at your World Cup-themed craft brew gathering this evening.
‘Check out VAEP on that’
‘Excuse me sir?’
‘Let me explain’
You’ll be the talk of the town and you will literally mog any wannabe football tactico in the room.
Please, let me know how it goes in the comments.
For the more basic among you, here are his shooting numbers as a percentile against Champions League players.
You can imagine that Arteta is going to beat the DEEP SHOTS out of him as soon as he arrives at Colney, but we have to be real about risk-taking; we don’t do enough of it, and there aren’t enough screamers in an Arsenal season. BRING BACK THE SCREAMERS. Say that at your party to show you are one of the people.
The numbers, for a very underpowered team, are quite exceptional. This is kind of where you’d be expecting Arsenal to put money… this isn’t a nailed-on winner of a signing. But the data all points towards a player who can do things in the final third with more force than Martinelli. If you left side is Barcola, a truly elite player, and this guy… I think you have probably given your left side ceiling a kick up the backside.
The Gradient rankings for his important attributes in Champions League are:
5th for pressured shot quality
10th for open play shooting
12th for control
10th for Bally Carrying
In short, he’s quite good. I also suspect Arteta might have had a word with Ben Knapper, who I believe had him at Norwich. This is all a little bit Gyokeres with the failed stint in England. But, it also carries the same risks. Battering an average league isn’t always a guarantee. But, I’m happy the pattern seems to be final action KINGS.
Hand of Arsenal is reporting that Arsenal would like a piece of Bradley Barcola… and Nico Paz of Madrid, more famed for a Como run last season.
I’ll be back with some more thoughts on Barcola and Paz tomorrow. We can’t discuss these players without the data. I just won’t do it.
We’ll also have a little chat about Cesc Fabregas at some point. There will be a day without Arteta, so thinking about succession plans is something we’ll have to get on the agenda. Crazy that I haven’t needed to explore new managers in 6 years because we have a great one. But 6 years is a long time, I’m not sure managers these days like to do more than 10 at a single club, and I know PSG came in for Arteta before they landed on Enrique. We have to be real, at some point, there will be a change, and we need to be ready with a list of names.
Short post today, let’s talk more on transfers tomorrow… for now, get yourself some AOP predictions chatter. This one is a free post! x
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